On the 8th we had our wedding photos taken, which I will describe in more detail in a later post.

Right now I just wanted to tell the world that 杨学友 (yáng xué yǒu – Mr. Yang of Paris Bride) is one superb photographer.

He took 340 photos over the course of the day, and they were all so good that it took us over 5 hours to select the 29 we would keep.

5 hours.

Well done Mr. Yang, and thank you!

Tags: Photography - 摄影师, Shanghai - 上海

Again, with the 6AM start. Breakfast was similar to what we had yesterday. Nah, it was exactly the same. Again, the spinach was best. Yes, I do think it is strange that spinach was offered for breakfast. These are the type of things one must become accustomed to when traveling. In New Zealand, for breakfast we eat toast or cereal. Almost never fried rice and spinach. Those are what we call “dinner food”.

After dinner breakfast, guess what we did? That’s right: boarded the bus. Then what? We waited! I’m not sure what we were waiting for, as nothing much was happening. No-one got off or left the bus during the hour. Strange? It would become familiar. Eventually, after the planets had reached the appropriate alignment, we left the hotel forever. We drove to the airport and were ejected from the bus.

We milled about in the airport entrance for sometime, unsure of what we were supposed to do. Eventually a guide came and herded us in the correct direction. He then proceeded to demand our passports, apparently so our check-in could be processed more smoothly. We handed our precious booklets over, then waited. And waited. After more waiting we finally saw him return with a bag of passports and a fistful of boarding passes. Uniting the trinity of human, passport and boarding pass was entertaining – no-one could read more than 50% of the names in his fistful of boarding passes. I started yelling out my mis-pronounciations of names until we all had our required documents.

Although we had now checked in, we still had to get our luggage on the plane. This involved more waiting and queuing. Finally, when it was done, we were directed to the boarding area, where we waited some more. Along the way people were lost and had to be recovered, mostly from toilets or fast-food stores.

It was a relief to finally get on the plane.

About 95% of the passengers on our plane were from the Chinese Bridge group – we received more than a few confused looks from local Chinese passengers. I found myself seated between a tiny Japanese woman and a Chinese man.

As we all know, there are many Chinese with a rather low opinion of the Japanese.

After finding out that Yvonne (my wife) is Chinese, he said I was China’s 亲戚, or son-in-law. He also gave me most of his food. I ate it (even the massive amount of rice) because I wanted to be polite. I was very full. We talked for the whole flight, which was great because I wasn’t tired at all and definitely didn’t need sleep. Every now and then he’d lean over and make some comment about Japanese people. Quite entertaining.

When we landed some people clapped, I think they were Russians. Apparently surviving a plane landing is quite an event over there. After landing all this mist started coming out of the air conditioning. It was strange. I took a video of it, you can see it here: mist on a plane.

Changsha, Hunan was hot. Very hot. It hit us like a wave as soon as we left the airport. Luckily there was an air-conditioned bus waiting for us, to wait in.

And in that bus, we waited.

Tags: Beijing - 北京, Hunan - 湖南, Travel - 旅游

On the way back from the great wall many of us were tired and wanted to rest quietly. The rest of the passengers were tired and wanted to sing loudly. I didn’t mind the singing so much, until Carl’s turn was over. After he sung, the quality of performances fell consistently. Eventually a large number of the singers were just yelling. At that point we (the non-singers) started yelling too: abuse at the singers. At some point we all stopped and the bus ride continued in relative quiet.

After much driving we reached our destination (wherever that was) and got off the bus. We were immediately herded into away into a building marked “Beijing Steel”. I didn’t know what to expect.

Turns out we were there for dinner. On maybe the 10th floor (wasn’t paying attention) there was a really flash restaurant, complete with stage, elevated tables and chandeliers. The roof and walls were splattered with small windows, giving the effect of a starry sky. To enhance this further, there were clear bulbs of glass suspended in strings from the ceiling. It was very nice looking.

The food was not quite at the same standard as the decor, but as I would be heard saying throughout the trip: “You try cooking the same meal, at the same time for 200 people who are always late, and see how THAT tastes”. When dinner was over, we bleated and kicked our way back to the bus, then were driven to the hotel.

After a short rest, Carl Jason and I ventured out: to McDonald’s. We took a cab, which was cheap. Carl and I had “Number 2 Meal”, because it was the only one we could read – 第二餐. It turned out to be a double cheeseburger. And it was great, even the chips! Jason had a sundae, because it was the only thing he could read. After finishing our meal we returned to the hotel.

Carl and Jason went to bed. I wasn’t willing to miss out on any fun activities, so I hung around the lobby waiting for something to happen. Two Hungarian guys came down and started asking the main organizer what they could go out and do in Beijing. The organizer basically said that the only place worth going to at that time (10:30PM) was “Bar Street”. None of us were interested in drinking, as we had to get up at 6 AM the next day to fly to Changsha, but we couldn’t miss this chance to pay money to get driven somewhere so we could wander aimlessly.

The guide demanded a map from the hotel receptionist, and drew a dot for the hotel and another for Bar Street. We thanked him and went out to find a taxi. The ride to Bar Street cost about 37元, and took about 30 minutes.

Immediately after exiting the taxi I was approached by an older gentleman who began trying to get me to go to some bar. I declined repeatedly. After he got the message he began blatantly offering me a prostitute. This I also declined. I also stopped being so polite and just walked off. Within one minute we were propositioned like this (bar, then prostitute/”lady bar”) over five times. One gets used to it after awhile. The Bar street was really a group of three streets that encircled a lake. The fourth street had no bars, as it was a rather large main road.

We walked around the lake, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, depending on the amount of harassment. Most bars had 2-4 people wandering about outside, who were apparently tasked with getting as many passers-by into the club as possible. They tried everything. Mostly they offered either cheap drinks or naked women. We didn’t go into any.

The best place on bar street was a small stall where a woman was selling paintings. At first I thought the paintings were screen-prints, as there were piles of apparently identical works for sale. Upon closer inspection I discovered that these piles consisted of non-identical but similar paintings, which I found much more interesting. There were many different designs – ranging from awesome to incredible. After looking at all the artwork for some time, we left and continued to wander.

Turning a corner we saw five policemen on motorbikes slowly cruise past. We passed many more bars, and were propositioned many more times.

As we walked the final stretch I almost demanded we go back to the artist’s stall as I really wanted to buy a particular painting. A quick glance inside my wallet changed my mind.

Finally sick of being offered prostitutes, we decided to take a different approach. We told the pimps that we were gay. They immediately stopped trying and walked off, every time. If you’re ever in a similar situation, I recommend this technique.

After that, my two gay Hungarian friends and I returned to the hotel.

Tags: Beijing - 北京, China - 中国, Travel - 旅游

Today we were woken up at six. Breakfast wasn’t until six-thirty, so I uploaded photos. For breakfast I had tasteless buns and spinach. Spinach was best.

After boarding the bus I realised I had forgotten my dictionary, so I ran back to get it. The bus was still there when I got back.

Our first stop was the Hanban and Confucius headquarters. When we arrived, we were told that they weren’t ready, so we drove into town to have a look around. When we arrived in town, we were told that they were ready, so we turned around and drove back. While driving we saw people folding up A4 advertising material and shoving it into the gap between the doorhandle and door of modern cars.

The HQ is very flash. In the foyer each country that has a Confucius institute has their flag displayed. We posed for photos with the NZ and ZH flags. We listened to a speech which was basically about how great we all were for learning Chinese so well, and how we should keep trying. After that we were free to wander about. I found a seat and rested. In front of me was a large screen which was showing last year’s competition.

By this time I was hungry again.

We left and headed towards the great wall. We drove through Beijing to get there, and were treated to views of large buildings and busy people. I saw at least five unsafe activities.

The drive to the great wall was quite long, and most of the bus kept themselves occupied by singing. I don’t sing, or like other people singing, so the bus ride was long and painful. Apart from when Carl sang, as I like him. Also his singing is high quality, not like screeching cats.

When we arrived ad the great wall (Badaling 八达岭) we had lunch. It was a buffet again, and markedly similar to breakfast. Needless to say, I ate a lot of tasteless bread. For dessert I tried to eat a lot of melons, but they had a light fishy flavour. I think the chef’s melon knife might double as a fish slicer. After dinner the main event began.

It took about thirty minutes to get to the great wall, then another twenty to get through the ticket gates. Jason, Carl and I walked together. We thought we were walking fast but kept seeing other people from the Chinese Bridge group ahead of us. This made us walk faster, and faster until we almost collapsed.

The entire way Carl kept trying to converse with Chinese people. Out of maybe fifty attempts, he had about six conversations longer than five minutes. One was with an old Chinese couple who had a really thick Cantonese accent. I enjoyed listening to Carl ask them to repeat themselves.

All the children we saw were constantly running, either up or down the wall. It wasn’t that surprising then, when we came across a little Chinese girl vomiting over the side of the wall. We gave her one of our precious water bottles, and tried to talk to her parents. They were really grateful, but our conversational attempts were rebuffed. It was obvious they were more interested in helping their kid and wanted us to shut up and go away.

We made it to the seventh guard house. I have no idea the distance involved. Jason really wanted to go on to the eighth, but Carl and I didn’t want to miss the bus and felt we were running out of time. In hindsight I see that they wouldn’t have left without us, and we could have taken all the time we wanted. Don’t tell Jason.

On the way down we walked beside the wall on a small path. Vegetation was growing all around the path and over the surrounding mountains, quite a contrast to the last time I climbed the wall in winter. It took a little while for me to recognise them, but amongst the vegetation were huge cannabis plants. I was amazed. I took various photos as evidence. There were no buds on any of the plants, I assume because they get picked off as soon as they’re visible. A friend told me later that he saw guards hiding in the bushes at a few spots, presumably waiting for dumb westerners to attempt to fill their bags with weed, so they can haul them off to the work camps. Another friend told me he saw a huge plant on the side of the wall that is inaccessible to foot traffic, heavily laden with buds.

When we finally arrived at the ticket gate, we found that hardly any of our group had gathered. We were tired so we sat down. Five minutes later we were verbally assaulted by a crazy bottle-lady who swore at us (I assume) in her local dialect, until growing tired of being ignored and walking off. We saw her walk around the area yelling at anyone who looked at her. The nice Chinese man next to us told me she was crazy, as if I couldn’t tell. Some kid walked past and giggled, so I did the “she’s crazy” hand movement. He laughed.

Tags: Beijing - 北京, China - 中国, Great Wall - 长城

I’m going back to China! What for? I don’t really know. So far as I’ve been told, I’m going to support the Chinese speech competition finalists, and though it seems a little weird to spend so much money sending people to clap, but I’m really happy to have been selected. By “selected” I mean performed well enough in our national speech competition to be thought worthy. Or whatever.

The trip has been organised and paid for by 汉班 and the Confucius Institute, both organisations focused on encouraging learners of Chinese as a second language, and involved in the planning and implementation of Chinese language education. The speech competition was about a month and a half ago. I had practiced a lot, and spoke well. We were also required to prepare some sort of cultural performance. This is a vague and somewhat confusing request. Many competitors sang karaoke, some sang well. One played some famous Chinese song on the guitar, another on the violin. I did Kung fu.

It wasn’t until I was halfway to Auckland the day before we were due to leave that I received word my visa was ready. This was a relief.

We stayed the night at my aunties, so we wouldn’t have to get up at 4 AM and drive for two hours on the day of my flight.

We met Carl (fellow student) at the airport. He had a document/cash protector hanging around his neck, which made us jealous immediately. The nearest store sold them, so we bought one. It is awesome.

When I checked in, I thought everything went well. That is, until I noticed that my traveling companions had two boarding passes, and I had only one. I went straight back to the check in counter to find out why. At first the guy at the counter told me that he couldn’t print anything and that I’d have to get my boarding pass in Seoul where we are stopping over. I didn’t like this idea, as we were supposed to have only an hour stopover in Seoul before boarding our flight to Beijing. He then tried to access my details using my name instead of the flight number, and it worked. He printed my boarding pass, then told me that he had to check something with his boss because of something to do with my passport. I didn’t like this either. After about 5 minutes he and his boss returned, and told me that someone with a similar name had been banned from flying with Korea Air. I assured them that this man was not me. They agreed and allowed me to complete my check in.

Some time after that I said goodbye to Yvonne and Mum, and boarded the plane. Unlike last time I went to China, this plane is almost empty. This means that people have been able to fold the armrests up and use the middle rows as beds. There were also no screaming babies, or arrogant arses. Or headrest-mounted televisions, but I came prepared with my laptop and DS.

About an hour after takeoff lunch was served. We were given the choice of Fish or “Korean”. I had “Korean”. I should have had the fish. Not that the “Korean” was bad, it just wasn’t filling [I doubt the fish would have been much better, but it did come with a bun]. Seaweed soup was good though, and there was rockmelon and honeydew. I think I’ve eaten 10 bags of peanuts as well. It’s not that I’m hungry, it’s just something to do.

And that brings us to the present. six hours left of our 11 1/2 hour flight. None of us really know what will happen when we arrive in Beijing. Apparently someone will pick us up from the airport. We don’t know who they are. I forgot what is supposed to be written on the sign. I’m hoping that we’re the only westerners on the flight, so they can identify us easily.

They do have televisions, about 5 per segment of the plane. Right now an incredibly bad movie is playing. For the first 20 minutes I watched it with a Korean voice over. Then I realized they also had the original English. Not that it made the movie better. It would be lucky be categorized as B grade film. The basic plot is: Nazis experimented on psychics, attempting to mould them into some kind of super weapon. They failed (lost the war) and America picked up the research. I forget the stupid name they gave the section of the government that controls this research. Something dumb like “unit” or “section”. Whatever. I guess the psychics will win in the end, because anything else would be clever. That guy from 4400 made a cameo appearance – to give you an idea of the budget.

Bah.

About five hours now. I think my laptop battery lasts much longer now, since getting the SSD. Oh look! Uncle Bully is in the movie! Ha ha! It just gets better.

Carl keeps getting me to ask the flight attendants how many hours left in the flight. I’m sure they’re getting annoyed. The male flight attendant looks surly, but that might just be because he’s Korean. One of the attendants took ages to work out how much longer we had, her maths wasn’t very good.

Man: I looked for you!
Woman: You didn’t find me.

Whoa, deep dialogue.

Woman: I can’t remember.
Man: You must have had yourself wiped. Erased memories make it harder for division [that's the stupid name] to track you.
Woman: Not the ones of you.

Oooo now there is an actress who looks like a cross-eyed cat. She’s Chinese, her English is pretty good. She pauses in all the wrong places though. It would be funny if she wasn’t so wrong looking.

Now the actress playing a thirteen year old girl is pretending to be drunk. So bad.

I think the stewardesses are preparing another meal. Yay, food is something to do!

The cross-eyed cat has two sidekicks. Their power is – get this – they pull faces and yell at locks, which then fly off the door. OMG.

I was seated near the toilets. For the entire flight I thought someone had a coughing problem, until I realised what the sound really was. It was the sound of vomiting. Someone had been vomiting (or attempting to do so) every 20 minutes or so – for he whole 11 hour flight!

Note to self: select chicken next time, the beef is a pile of fatty gristly fat.

Two New Zealand women were sitting in front of us, it wasn’t until we were 40 minutes from landing that we realised they were going to the same place…

Couldn’t ring Yvonne from Korea because global roaming didn’t work. HEAR THAT TELECOM?

This time, there were three Japanese women sitting behind us. It wasn’t until we landed that we realised that they, also, were going to the same place.

Arrival and customs went smoothly – China doesn’t care as much as New Zealand. Again, I gave the customs official the biggest smiley-face rating. This time though, he deserved it.

We waited at the airport for some other people in our group to arrive. I had a coffee at Starbucks. Starbucks seems really expensive here, but I worked it out and actually it’s the same price as New Zealand. This is what makes it seem expensive, as everything else is so much cheaper.

It is much different for me this time, as I actually understand people sort of. And they sort of understand me. I’ve never had a free trip like this, even if we turned around and went home now I’d be happy – it’s been awesome (and we just arrived). I have no idea what we’re doing after tomorrow – I guess I’ll find out on the day.

After the group was complete, we boarded a bus and drove to the hotel. On the way I attempted to do the “一是一，四十四“ tongue twister. I failed. The Paddon hotel is very flash, see photos (up later). Sharing a hotel with Carl, who I know quite well.

Had to get up at six today, breakfast at seven. First we’re going to the Confucius Institute, I guess the headquarters. Then I think we’re going to the great wall, but I wasn’t paying much attention when the organiser was talking about it.

China is fun.

Tags: Beijing - 北京, China - 中国

The Internet is a big place – finding good information can be difficult, sometimes impossible. When I first started learning Chinese, I spent a bit of time with Google, searching for some tips made by other westerners who were further down the path than I. I found a lot of crap, but among it there were some real gems. These are sites that I, and many other 学中文的老外 return to regularly.

I thought I’d write a little review of each site that has made it to my bookmark list, giving a brief outline of why the site is useful, what it offers, and why I return.

If you’re learning Chinese, I know you’ll find these sites helpful!

The first site is My China Start. I decided to start with this site because it is a directory of top-quality China and Chinese Language related web pages.

The site is split into various pages, with pages for individual Chinese cities (Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Beijing being my favourites), the Chinese language, food and museums, to name a few. The site is incredibly well organized: the home page consists of a selection of small boxes, each box representing a category of Chinese sites. At first I did think this was a little weird, I’m used to sites having a main content area with either a vertical or horizontal navigation menu. After clicking around the site though, and discovering the amount of information that has been packed in, I understand why the creator chose this method of displaying the information. Now I’m used to it, I can’t see why more sites haven’t copied the layout!

To illustrate my point: clicking on the “Chinese Dictionaries” link that is within the dictionaries box on the homepage will take one to a new page filled with more little boxes. Each box is a sub-category of its own: Chinese-English Dictionary sites, Chinese English Character Input, Nature and Science Glossaries are a few box titles – there is also a box for sites containing Legal Glossaries! My favourite link on this page, however, is to the Military English site. It really is quite amusing.

The page I use most is the Learn Chinese category page, which lists links to sites aimed at helping one … learn Chinese.

This is the page that helped me find most of the sites that I plan to write about in future posts, but if you want to go check it out now instead of waiting for me to write about them, and ruin the surprise; please go right ahead.

My China Start is an excellent place for anyone with even a passing interest in China and its wonderful Culture. The Learn Chinese page is one that anyone learning Chinese must visit, it is that good.

Go there now!

Tags: China - 中国, Chinese - 中文, Review - 考核

Tags: Books, Review - 点评

I remembered, about an hour ago, that I have Google Earth installed. I was pretty pleased to remember this, as I’m trying very hard to avoid my latest programming assignment. Those assignments are the only ones I avoid, because the hurt my little brain.

Anyway… Shortly after remembering I have Google Earth installed, I also remembered that I was never able to find 锦秋花园 (jÄ«nqiÅ«hÅ«ayuán), which is where I lived while I was in China. 锦秋花园 is a very nice property development. I’ve mentioned before, the security there is excellent. They guards are all dressed in military-looking uniforms, and apparently have all been in the army at some point. They are very efficient. I also said earlier – I would not want to irritate them too much.

You can view this on Google Maps here.

Across the road (to the south) one can see the Shanghai University’s 宝山(bāoshān) campus. It is large. I also found the $2 park, which can also be seen on Google Maps here.

Worth every penny

That is all I have now, I’ll add some more later.

I guess I’d better start thinking about my assignment.

Tags: China - 中国, Google Earth, Shanghai - 上海

If manliness is measured by the amount of foreign festivals one has experienced, then last Thursday I became entitled to a bushy lumberjack beard, as this was the first day of Chinese New Year. I’m not going to wear a lumberjack beard though, to Yvonne I’m hairy enough, simply because of my race. A lumberjack beard would be too much, I’ll save it for the future, in case I ever need to “spice things up”.

Uh, New Years. Yeah it started with dinner, there were dinners in the middle, and it ended with dinner. There were a lot of dinners, and every night was filled with explosions.

The first night, we had dinner at home. Apparently the food was a kind that is only eaten at New Years. As I am foreign, however, for me it was no more or less exotic than the other food I’d eaten. It did taste nice though.

The next day we went to one of Yvonne’s relative’s houses for dinner. As it was New Years, I was allowed to drink beer without being called an alcoholic by Yvonne. Again, the dinner was nice. On the way to the relative’s house we walked through Shanghai’s industrial zone, and I was impressed by the seriously high roads. Really high roads, like 50 m high. Crashing off one of those would be certain death. As we were waking under it, it didn’t happen. I took a bunch of photos of the roads, to prove I’m not making this up.

We had some other dinners as well. At a dinner with Yvonne’s Dad’s side of the family, there was Chinese Whiskey. According to Yvonne’s Dad, I am good at drinking. I tell them this is because drinking heavily is part of western culture, and that by our standards I am a cheap drunk. Thinking back, maybe this was offensive to them, since they said I was good at drinking, and I said that actually I wasn’t. Maybe they think that I think that they are bad at drinking, and because I said that drinking heavily is part of western culture, maybe they think that we think that people who can’t drink very much are somehow lacking? Maybe I’m just mental, and the only one who considers things like this.

What else happened? Fireworks. More fireworks than I’ve ever heard at one time. Sounded like we were in the middle of an artillery barrage. Fireworks we can get in New Zealand and pathetic. Here one can buy (cheaply) any type of firework one wants. The most popular was what I call “Death Box”, or a 40 cm x 50 cm x 40 cm cardboard box with a fuse. One lights the fuse and takes cover. About 20 seconds later, a succession of popping noises can be heard, followed by a reddish streak rising into the sky (hopefully, anyway – I saw some explode on the ground), then exploding. I question the logic of packaging so many individual bombs in such proximity.

* * *

We leave for New Zealand tomorrow.

China has been fun, I look forward to coming back next year.

Tags: China - 中国, Chunjie, Shanghai - 上海, Spring Festival - 春节

Last post I mentioned that Yvonne and I made an igloo. That statement was true. Our tools were: one bucket and one spade. It took about two hours.

I thought I’d have more to say about it than this, but I don’t.

Below are some pictures of the igloo.

Yep, an igloo in Shanghai.

Tags: China - 中国, Shanghai - 上海, Snow

While I was staying at the university’s dormitory, I ate mostly packaged chips or LEM. I think I went to LEM about four times. The second time I went there I thought I’d take a risk and order something other than the Student Meal, so I ordered a hamburger meal (big mac clone), with a student meal as a backup. The beef in the hamburger was hideous, but I ate it anyway because I was so hungry, and I knew I had the delicious taste of old deep-fried chicken to chase it down. The one thing that LEM does better than KFC and McDonald’s is drinks – KFC and McDonald’s use the standard soft drink syrup, which is mixed with soda in their big drink machines. The mixing of these drinks is almost never done correctly, resulting in drinks that are either far too sweet, or far too bitter. Also, I’ve found that the drinks from these places, in addition to the standard mixing flaws, have a slight taste of dirt. I think this is due to the Chinese water supply being … less than pure. LEM circumnavigates this problem by pouring store-bought bottled soft drinks into their machines, ensuring consistency and flavour.

On Sunday of the second week, Yvonne had organised that her friends, her and myself would have lunch together, wander about, then play badminton. We went to a Japanese restaurant for lunch. The food was so-so, I’m not a big fan of raw meat/fish, and I wasn’t that hungry to begin with. One of the “highlights” of the meal was (raw?) octopi marinated in some red stuff. Another was raw horse meat. I ate both which, as you’ll find out later, turned out to be quite a bad idea.

After lunch we wandered about for some time. We walked through various malls, which I don’t remember. Malls do not deserve my attention, unless they sell electronics. After the malls we went to play badminton. The gym in which we played was on the fourth floor of a nondescript building somewhere in Shanghai. We had to wait for about half an hour for other people to be told to get off the courts before we could start. One of Yvonne’s friends and myself were the best, when it was he and I vs. whoever else, victory (for us) was swift. After a short time it was decided that we weren’t allowed to play on the same side, because it was unfair. We had a lot of fun, and played for about two hours.

Some interesting notes about the gym: it was on the fourth floor – all gyms are on the ground floor in New Zealand. People smoked inside the gym! They’d play their game, then retire to the sidelines and light up.

We then returned to our respective homes.

Monday’s class was OK, afterward I returned to my room and played Battle for Wesnoth. It snowed quite heavily, and at about 9 PM I went for a short walk to take some photos. About an hour after I returned I began to feel very sick. My stomach felt like it was filled with acid (funny because it actually is filled with acid, permanently… can’t think of a better way to describe it though), and I felt like vomiting. I tried to fix myself with oranges, but they only made me more uncomfortable. Shortly after the oranges, I threw up. I was sick for about three days. I didn’t go to class on Tuesday, but I forced myself to go to all the others.

During my Thursday class, my irritation with my electronic dictionary reached critical mass. I decided it was time to find one that was actually helpful, instead of what I had at the time, which was a dictionary designed for Chinese people learning English. I thought it would be good, forcing me to learn more Chinese, but actually (some would say dur dur dur here) it was less than helpful. Those weren’t the main reasons, however. When reading Chinese I often come across words I have not seen before, or words whose meanings escape me. In these cases I do not know the PÄ«nyÄ«n, and therefore can’t look up the words in my dictionary, which is limited to pÄ«nyÄ«n only look-ups. This is frustrating, and meant that I would just skip over the offending word, instead of learning its meaning and pronunciation. I was feeling a little better (or so I thought), so after class I texted Yvonne to ask if she’d like to go for lunch then accompany me to Tech-Heaven so we could find a dictionary that allowed one to input the character directly (via a touch-screen interface). Some organisation later, we met at the subway, then went for lunch with one of her friends. I was given the honor of choosing what to eat, due to my uncomfortable stomach and slippery bowels. I chose pizza, because the thought of eating anything “soupy” made me think of toilets and waterfalls (brown waterfalls). So, we ate at “Papa John’s” pizzaria, which was so-so. Domino’s NZ is better, and about the same price if you’re a student.

After lunch we said goodbye to Yvonne’s friend, and headed towards Tech-Heaven. We stopped at the first store in from the entrance, and asked them about dictionaries into which one could write Chinese. They showed us some examples, and demonstrated the functionality. I was impressed, but wanted to look around, to make sure I knew what was on offer. I was hoping I’d be able to find a dictionary with some sort of scheduling functionality built-in, as this is all I really use my PDA for, and I’d rather carry around two devices (cellphone, PDA or cellphone, dictionary) than three. As we were turning to leave the stall I spied exactly what I wanted, the Besta TV-3000 aka The Dictionary of the Gods. It allows Chinese handwriting input (among many other input options), has some scheduling functionality – limited to class schedule, but that is all I really need, and various other bells and whistles. It was quite expensive (not telling), but worth it. Now, when I come across new words, I actually want to look them up, and remembering them is easier, as in order to look them up I have to write them at least once. Oh, it also has an option to test one’s pronunciation, and will show (and allow opportunity to practice) the stroke order of any character. It also shoots lightning bolts, and cures cancer.

I couldn’t find a photo of the dictionary – it was released only a few days before I bought it, and only one device was produced. I doubt the news of its production will hit the internet until I am old and grey, which I won’t ever be, because the dictionary contains within it the secret to eternal life, and a cure for AIDS.

I also wanted to have a look for a cheap cellphone (was going to get a nice one, but the dictionary dramatically reduced the available budget), but my stomach alerted me to the fact that unless a toilet was reached soon, I’d be wishing I’d brought a spare pair of pants.

We rushed to the nearest toilet, and Yvonne stood around while I popped in and out. When I thought it was safe, I announced that we should take the subway back to my room. Half-way to the subway station, my stomach gave me another warning. I paid heed, and returned to the toilet. After I came out, we decided to buy some “stopped” pills, because without them I didn’t think I’d be able to last the entire subway trip. I had taken some previously, to get through class, and to give my body enough time to absorb the liquids I had been drinking, but I had decided earlier in the day that I’d try to stay off them, as I don’t think it is healthy to keep taking things like that. This was a dire situation though, so we bought more. I took the pills and we waited for about half an hour to be sure no more explosions would occur. The subway home was blessedly uneventful.

By the next day the worst of the sickness had passed. Having finished the Chinese course, I returned to Yvonne’s parent’s house.

Tags: Gadget

Haven’t written for awhile, I’ve been away at a course. The course was at Shanghai University, and was helpful. It was a Chinese course, and ran for two weeks. Most of the material I had covered before, but as we used a different text book, each day was filled with about 15 new words for me to attempt to memorize. Of course there were some grammar points that I had not come across before, and I learned yet another way to say “but” – “不过”. Now I know about 4 ways to say “but”. This type of thing is one of the hardest aspects (I find) of learning a language. One learns enough to have a short conversation quickly – so long as the conversation partner uses only the variations that one has learned. Even for a hard-working student such as myself swiftly learns that language “in the field” is a different beast to language in the classroom. I know how to say a lot of things, but I can understand far, far less. Like English, Chinese has 2~5 different words that mean essentially the same thing. Technically they’re different words, but for a novice the difference between “popular” “famous” “acclaimed” “infamous” “renowned” is not large. This means that I often have to get people (Yvonne’s parents, they’re the only people I try to have actual conversations with) to repeat themselves using variations of the same words, as I’ll often know what they’re talking about, I just won’t know it because they’re using words I am not familiar with.

Two days before classes had begun, Yvonne and I went to the dorm and paid my fees. They had neglected to mention that bond was required, luckily we’d learned from the last week of payment trials and had brought an amount of money far in excess of whatever extras we imagined they’d tack on. Bond was 800å…ƒ, and we got it back afterwards. When payment was finally over, we went up to my room, where I was doomed to live for the duration of the course.

Contrary to my expectations, the room was quite nice. I’d give it a 2.5 star rating. It consisted of a bedroom/office with a desk, a bed, a TV, a chest of drawers a cupboard and a water heater thing and an ensuite. There was also an air conditioning unit, which was welcome. I immediately set the unit to its highest setting, 32°C, where it stayed until Yvonne found out and told me off. When I had unpacked my laptop, and thrown the rest of my baggage into a corner, I announced that I had settled in, and that we should find a supermarket. The closest was just across the road from the nearest university gate, and from it we bought various snacks and some water. The water in my room tasted like dirt and had a yellow-brown tint. I didn’t drink the water in the room.

The area surrounding the supermarket was filled with small restaurants and other student orientated stores, none of which interested me. On our way back to the room we had dinner, at LEM. LEM is short for 乐而美 – lè’èrmÄ›i, and is a KFC clone. I ordered a student meal, I forget what Yvonne ordered. The food was OK, good enough for me to return a number of times throughout my stay at the university. After eating I accompanied Yvonne to the bus stop, then played Battle of Wesnoth alone in my room. Battle of Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game. It is free, and runs on Mac, Windows or Linux. Though it is free, the quality is still high, and is a very enjoyable game. After completing some of the campaigns, which teach you the basics of the game, I’d recommend moving on to multiplayer.

I didn’t have the internet in my room however, so I just played single player. To use the internet on one’s own computer, one is required to install some software, which is Windows XP or Vista only. There were three computers in a room on the first floor for communal use though, which meant I was able to check emails.

The next day I had to get up at 8 AM to pay my fees and collect my text book. This all went relatively smoothly. At one point, after successfully paying my fees, I was told to sit on the ground floor and wait for the rest of the foreign students, which I did. I had been sitting for about 30 minutes when a different person came into the room and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was waiting for the other students, and he gestured that I should follow him. We went to the room I was originally in, and I was told to sit in a different chair. After waiting there for about 20 minutes, we (some other students had arrived by then) were taken to a small room where our Chinese competence was assessed. I was put into the B class, which is better than the A+ class. After this we were given our class schedules, and told that we were finished for the day.

I went back to my room and played Battle of Wesnoth, then watched a movie.

The next day we had our first class. I made sure I arrive just on time, so I wouldn’t have to sit with a bunch of people I don’t know and exchange small talk. The demographics of the class were: 8 Germans (one male), 4 Japanese (two male) 1 Korean (male) and myself (New Zealand). Note: some of my classmates were not present for the photo.

The teacher spoke mostly Chinese, and we covered a chapter each lesson. There was little homework, so at night I either watched documentaries/movies or played Battle for Wesnoth.

The course was fun, and helpful.

Later I’ll write about how I got food poisoning from Japanese food, my new dictionary, and an igloo.

Tags: China - 中国, Shanghai - 上海, University - 大学

Before coming to China I applied for a scholarship to study at a University here. I was successful, and since I came to China have enrolled in a short course at the Shanghai University. Applying was no problem, that was sorted out very quickly. Organising the payment, however, has proved to be more than a little irritating. Yesterday we went to the International Student’s Center with all of the required documents, and asked to pay. There appeared to be only two staff members working, one was busy with an American woman, who had forgotten where she was, and was trying to use English. I thought it was a little funny, as she would ask a question in English, and the man would answer in Chinese. Yet she continued to make requests in English. She became more and more upset, and was crying by the time we left. I don’t know what she was trying to achieve. Anyway, the man we were speaking to told us that we’d have to go to a different office to pay, as the woman who handles payments was out. He was kind enough to accompany us to this office. When we arrived, we were told that the woman wasn’t there either. As we were leaving, we ran into her, and asked if we could please pay my fees. She said that we could, but they only accept cash. This was just great. We were short by only 200å…ƒ. We asked where the nearest ATM machine was, expecting to hear that there was one on-campus. This was not so. The woman told us that the nearest machine was “just up the road.” We thanked her, told her we’d be back soon, and left.

The walk to the ATM machine took at least forty minutes. Not only did it take a long time, it was also quite hazardous. The area is under heavy development, which means areas of leveled rubble, no footpaths (one must walk in the bike lane), and heavy machinery. All of this requires one to have three sets of eyes, as buses don’t slow down, no matter how many people are walking on the side of the road. When we finally arrived at what we thought was the ATM machine the woman was talking about, we found that it was out of service. So we kept walking. We eventually found a working machine, and started the long trek back. I got in trouble for taking photos, as we were apparently in a hurry.

When we arrived at the university, I discovered the reason for our haste – the woman seemingly works thirty-minute shifts, she had gone home. The man we dealt with earlier, while typing an email in Japanese, told us to come back the next day. GREAT!

* * *

Annoyed, we went from the university to town, where we spent some time looking in shops. We had dinner at a Korean restaurant, where I had a glass of Korean Ginseng Whiskey. That whiskey was so strong, it was difficult to drink. Each sip burned my mouth like acid, but I drunk it all. After dinner we went to Pudong, and looked in more shops. Yvonne bought a nice set of formal clothes, so she will be able to win at job interviews. Finding the right set took quite some time. Before going home we had a snack at McDonald’s. I had a “fresh vegetable beef burger,” which is known as a Quarter Pounder in western countries. The only difference is the addition of cucumber.

On the way home I took some photos of welders welding.

On Sunday I start my course, hopefully it is more organised than our first impression leads us to believe.

Edit: course was great.

Tags: China - 中国, Shanghai - 上海, University - 大学

Today I was woken up by Yvonne telling me that we were going to the place from which one may buy balls. Not the type you’re probably thinking of, but the type that one may roll around in one’s hand. According to Yvonne only old men use them, but I’ve had a set for ages (Grandparents bought them for me from Singapore). I didn’t know why we had to get up so early to buy balls, but Yvonne allowed no argument. We took a bus, then another bus to our destination.

We got off the bus and walked into a rather bustling market area. The predominant colour was red, from hundreds of new year’s lanterns. It seems that most of the shops sold those lanterns. Walking into one of the stores was like descending into the forest of another world, a world in which instead of trees forests have desks, and roofs without insulation, and instead of vines hanging from the “trees”, there are hundreds of new year’s lanterns. That analogy should go down as one of the worst ever. Maybe I should have just said this: there were a lot of new year’s lanterns, everywhere. I thought that this was the place we were to spend the entire day, so I was slowly wandering about, feigning interest in the store’s wares. I later found that I was wasting my time when Yvonne pointed to a big gate that the majority of the crowds were heading towards, and told me that it was where we were going for the day. I was a little confused, as it looked a bit too “up market” to be selling balls, but I didn’t argue.

The place was called Yu Yuan, and is apparently the only site of cultural significance left in Shanghai. It was pretty much just shops in new looking old-style buildings. I thought this was quite amusing, seeing old style buildings with big KFC signs being prominently displayed on the side of them. One building was a Starbucks. We went in and bought a Caramel Latte, which was delicious. All of the staff at every Starbucks I’ve been to (two) have spoken workable English. One time I tried to order in Chinese, and it too far longer than loudly saying “Latte Medium” would have. Instead I repeated myself three times, then labored through an enquiry about how one says “latte” in Chinese. Turns out it is natie. I recognized the “na” character, æ‹¿, but not the tie, 铁. After I heard the staff member say it however, I recognized it as the second part of “subway”, 地铁. Silly me. This time Yvonne did the talking, which was much more efficient. I also got her to ask whether the iced coffees had more caffeine than hot ones, as I wanted a real kick. The iced ones are stronger, take note.

After buying wonderful coffee we crossed the oddly shaped bridge to the main attraction. Tickets were 30å…ƒ. It was worth it, I guess. Yuyuan was quite big, and very pretty. Its style was different to the buildings we saw in Beijing, but only slightly. The roofs were black, Beijing’s were brown. Also it wasn’t as cold. I took a lot of photos as well, go have a look.

One thing worth mentioning is the number of white people there. It was the only time I’ve seen Chinese people outnumbered. Most of the white people were Russian. I saw two Americans, a couple of Italians, and maybe ten Russians. It was interesting to hear the Chinese guides speaking Russian/Italian. The Russians scowled at me when I slurped my drink loudly, so I made sure to slurp even more loudly. Take that, Boris.

On second thought, maybe the Russian wasn’t scowling at all. Maybe that was his standard expression?

My favourite part of Yuyuan was the pond. If you’ve been reading this blog for a little while, I doubt that will come as a surprise. The pond had a little waterfall, and some fish. In short, it was perfect.

Other cool things in Yuyuan were: Dragon themed walls (naughty, according to Yvonne. At that time only the Emperor was allowed to use Dragons), old trees, small trees, and creepy lions. One tree was over 400 years old. It was black, and did look its age. There were a lot of small trees around, all well pruned. The lions near the exit of Yuyuan were rather strange, quite creepy in fact. Actually, the whole place was quite strange, in a subtle way. All of the doorways in white walls were weird shapes, there were Dragons on the walls, buildings had little characters on top of them, and the place was filled with Russians. My spine tingles at the memory.

After looking at everything we realised we were quite hungry, so we left and crossed the oddly shaped bridge again to get some lunch.

While walking towards Yvonne’s chosen food source, we passed a small stall that sold, among other things, camera tripods. I’ve been keeping an eye out for a particular type of tripod, one with short but flexible legs. They had one such tripod, and after a small amount of haggling we bought it for 25å…ƒ, a price equal to one coffee from Starbucks.

Yvonne wanted special dumplings, which required queuing for about half an hour. When we finally got some we found that they weren’t that special, Yvonne’s mother’s are much better. We ate them anyway. Then we went to a restaurant that sold bigger dumplings with straws. One is supposed to drink the juice from the dumpling. These weren’t very nice either, though they were very cute. Each dumpling cost more than a coffee from Starbucks – 25å…ƒ. We left without finishing. Yvonne then bought some strange pudding that I didn’t taste. It was gooey.

Now was the time to look for suitable balls to purchase. We left the Yuyuan area, and re-entered the bright red shopping area. Hidden behind all of the stores was a very large, three storied warehouse filled with small stalls. The stalls sold various different things, from souvenirs to knitting essentials. We spent quite some time here, asking around for balls. We also bought some little things for people back home. One of the storekeepers told us that balls were available from a store just outside the warehouse, so we headed there when we became tired of the warehouse.

After some searching we managed to find the store the man was talking about. They did indeed sell balls, and I bought a pair of steel ones. They were 5å…ƒ each.

On our way to the bus stop we stopped at a cafe and had some more food. Yvonne ordered the Cuboidal Toast for me, and had some yellow buns and rice soup for herself. Cuboidal Toast was strange only because of its shape. Everything else about it was what one would expect from toast – butter, jam… oh, and a scoop of ice cream. Totally normal. When the waitress brought us our drinks, she got confused when we asked which was the coffee and which was the tea – she told us there isn’t any difference. There was, and I quickly identified them. I finished eating before Yvonne, and amused myself with my new tripod.

Our business in this part of town concluded, we took a bus to a more familiar area, one with Watson’s. Yvonne asked me if I wanted to “have some fun.” I said that I did, and was led into “Tom’s World,” which is an arcade. It was very colourful, and quite large. I played a manly game involving guns ‘n’ killing, while Yvonne played what I would call “kiddie slots.” We spent quite a bit at the arcade, but we also had fun. Whether the fun was proportional to the fee is not important.

When we had finished with the kiddie slots, we went outside and I played with the tripod. I took three photos, then the battery went flat. This was our cue to leave.

Tags: China - 中国, Culture - 文化, Shanghai - 上海, 豫园

I haven’t really done much of any real interest since the last entry, so instead of wowing you with lies about things that didn’t happen, I’ll just type until I get bored about whatever I want. Sure, lies about awesome exploits would be more interesting, but I don’t want to ruin my “online reputation”. Just kidding. The real reason I’m not going to write a whole lot of lies is because I know too many people would believe it, and waste my time not understanding when I told them “it was a joke, I was bored.”

So… what have I been doing lately? I went to Cybercity again, because I’m addicted to the place. Also we had to get a memory card for Yvonne’s new camera. Don’t think that all we bought was what we intended to buy, oh no. Our intention was to buy a memory card, but we left with a memory card, a screen protector, a camera bag and two keyboard covers. This time our favourite salesman was there, so we didn’t shop around at all. The memory card is a Kingston 4 GB – 380å…ƒ – NZ$62.70. I thought this was an OK deal, but I haven’t done any research. I forget how much the rest cost, not too much though. 4 GB is a ridiculous size. At the highest quality setting we can take 996 photos, or 32 minutes of video. This is a huge improvement, from 51 photos at full quality on the old camera. I will now be documenting each step I take outside. When we were choosing the memory card, the salesman asked to see the camera. He saw that we lacked a screen cover, and while asking us if we wanted one, he fixed one to the screen. We saw that it wasn’t coming off in a hurry, and mentioned that his sales technique was effective. His English is very good, much better than average. It is good enough for him to get the idea of what Yvonne and I are talking about, when we use English to discuss whether or not whatever item we’re looking at is worth buying at the given price. He’ll use this information to calculate a lower price, or interject with information about the product in question, showing that he knows what we’re talking about. About the camera case – we had one when we came in! Now we have two.

By the time we left, night had fallen. Yvonne wanted to go pay her respects to Kanebo, so I trailed along behind. I sat on an uncomfortable stool while Yvonne talked about different methods of worship. Eventually she decided on a suitable monetary sacrifice, and received her blessing, a bag filled with special paint. I often see her kneeling alone in front of a mirror using these paints to “pray.”

After the make up store we decided to go home. On the way we passed a building, that during the day looks rather unremarkable, aside from the fact that it has a big sphere sticking out the front. At night, however… It is transformed into an amazing orb of light. I took a video of it, you can see it here.

* * *

When I am not out doing things, I’m sitting on the couch (my office) making websites.

The websites I have made are:

Pages of Interest (this site)

Waikato Golden Key

Taejitsu

* * *
Also, I’m announcing the beginning of the “Toilets Series” photo page, where I will post photos of toilets. The quality range varies greatly in China, some are absolute luxury, some are simple holes in the ground. Some of the holes in the ground are still pretty luxurious, you’ll see what I mean in the future.

Tags: China - 中国, Cybercity, Shanghai - 上海, 徐家汇